


the valiant never taste of death but once

by ilvermoron



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Maximum Ride - James Patterson
Genre: Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-01
Updated: 2017-11-01
Packaged: 2018-11-21 20:08:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11364717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilvermoron/pseuds/ilvermoron
Summary: hey dudes, i'm back with some more crossover fun! trying to make a comeback on ao3, so expect more frequent updates. see y'all next time, and feel free to comment with your thoughts!





	1. cutting off the head of a serpent

The volume of the alarms had to have been set to ‘deafening’, which was an entirely likely option for a facility like the one that was about to go down in flames. Fire consumed the walls, licking at the heels of a tiny girl with cinnamon curls and a wailing baby in her arms. Behind her was an older, black-haired boy, nearly ten years old, who carried a little boy in one arm and dragged along a terrified boy his age with the other. Bringing up the rear, slowest due to the fact that she was swinging punches left and right at men twice her size, was a girl. Her targets wore white coats and none of them could handle more than one blow before going down hard.

Her fists broke noses, snapped bones, ruptured organs. Her face was stained by blood, her own and others, and her pale blue hospital gown what stained with her sweat. Heat hissed from the burning walls as they began to crumble.

And the girl with her knuckles split and her face shining with sweat was smiling.

After planting a kick squarely in the center of a whitecoat’s chest and kicking him with enough force to send him falling onto the man behind him, the five-foot-tall child whirled around, and her eyes caught on a security camera for the briefest moment before--

The video stopped. The girl stood frozen in that moment of adrenaline and fear and triumph, and in her eyes was the slightest echo of foreseen victory. She knew she was going to escape.

“This is from 2008,” Coulson explained, pulling a chart of information up beside the footage. “The ragtag bunch of children managed to escape Hydra when the oldest was only ten, fighting their way out tooth and claw.”

“And feather,” Simmons added, reviewing the genetic makeup of the mutant children. 98% human and 2% bird, varying species. There had been seventeen attempts at human-avian recombinants, and it was unknown how many survived, but it seemed that only six had managed to escape. Simmons didn’t want to know what had happened to the other eleven.

“The subjects, who call themselves the Flock,” Coulson explained, replacing the faceless files with images of the individual children, “are known to be incredibly physically strong. Their mental capacity is unknown, but the files outline electrical stimulation to all of their developing brains. Specifically, this one.” He swiped up on the table and five of the files tucked themselves away, replaced by the image and information of a glaring girl no older than fifteen. She had dull brown, tangled hair, clearly cut with an unsuitable tool, a pair of sharp brown eyes (one of which was blackened), and an expression that clearly showed her reluctance to be photographed. Her upper lip curled in disgust, the ferocity of her gaze nearly overshadowing the scrapes and bruises on her face and obvious malnourishment.

“She wasn’t assigned a name, but her file states that she named herself Maximum Ride. She’s the oldest by six months, making her the leader. She’s our primary target.” Coulson looked grim. “Watch out for her. She won’t come easy, and it’s rumored that she’s the strongest of the group. They call themselves the Flock.”

“Sir?” Fitz asked. “If she’s so dangerous, then why are we attempting to bring her in?” He asked hesitantly, analyzing the girl’s statistics. “It says here that she took out seven Hydra agents by herself while escaping their facility _when she was ten_.”

Coulson nodded. “Exactly. Not only will she make a brilliant asset, but Hydra’s after her too. All of these children were made to be weaponized, and Hydra’s not letting them go easily.” He pressed his mouth into a line, reluctantly delivering the worst of the news. “It’s entirely possible that if we don’t succeed in apprehending them and Hydra does, each of these children will have their free will stripped of them and be turned into nothing but weapons of mass destruction.”

Skye was frowning, reading through the girl’s statistics. She’d been subjected to electroshock therapy, non-anesthetized surgery, and other nightmarish forms of improvement the scientific research facility deemed necessary to make her powerful. It seemed they had succeeded. She flew at the speed of sound under duress. “Why are we taking this one?” She asked. “She’s the hardest to take down. Why not… him?” She suggested, pointing to the image of a young, blonde boy, who somehow looked devilish even in his photograph. “He’s an easy target, and he probably won’t kill any of us.”

“Neither will she,” May pointed out.  She recognized the ferocity in Maximum’s eyes that Skye had mistaken for bloodlust as protection. She was dangerous, but kind. There was still a heart in her. “She’s got no one on her kill list.”

“And, once we have her, the others will come after,” Coulson added. “She’s perfect bait.”

Ward seemed skeptical. Her list of abilities included not only an impressive IQ, but the average force of her punch was seven hundred pounds. A teenage girl with wings, superhuman strength, and a family to protect. “She’s a wild card, Coulson. She could bring down the entire plane.”

“Or she could bring us all a whole new level of skill,” he argued. “She may be powerful, but she’s still just a child. Her mind can change. Clearly, she’s not part of Hydra, or she wouldn’t have led the revolt to escape them.”

Ward, clearly unwilling to assume the risk, looked to May for backup. “What’s your call?”

May shook her head. “This information is five years old. She’s fifteen now, _and_ she’s been off-grid for a third of her life. I doubt the intelligence gathered on her when she was ten is accurate, and anything since then is hardly reliable.”

Fitz and Simmons shared a glance, wordless but communicative, and Skye envied that companionship. So far, she was still being alienated from the rest of the team. Evan as they managed to bond, she remained outcast. Understandably, since she’d made multiple attempts to betray them, but none that had ever been intended to harm any of them.

“You’re right,” Coulson agreed, clearing the old information off the holocom. “That’s why no one from SHIELD has attempted to pursue her until now.”

Skye narrowed her eyes suspiciously, finding herself rooting for the kid. “What’s different now?”

He pursed his lips. “Hydra caught up to her last week. After the escape five years ago, they crafted specially-made monsters to catch up with the Flock.” He didn’t go into detail on them; Skye hoped it was because they were too horrific to describe, but May knew Hydra was too smart to let their best weapons be caught on camera. No one knew what these things looked like without dying for their troubles.

“She got away alive,” Coulson went on, “but she’s hurt. The Flock is venturing farther and farther out, and yesterday two of them-- the oldest, besides Maximum-- got caught on security feeds at a local strip mall. They’re scared. They’re going to keep looking for her until they have their leader back. Which is why we’ll get to her first.”

Across the country, a fifteen-year-old girl slumped against the wall of a shallow cave, the entire left side of her body soaked in blood. She’d chosen her hiding place well; the cave had a pool of water at the far end, which she was using to shakily clean out the bullet wound in her shoulder. Every touch stung like the time she’d tried to cook pasta and ended up putting a hand on the burner by accident. Her whole body bore evidence of the battle she’d been caught in, aside from the worst wound. Thick claw wounds marred her legs and arms, itching as they healed rapidly. One of her eyes was black, and judging by the intense stabbing pain in her chest whenever she breathed too deeply, she’d broken a rib, too.

But she was alive, so she had won. She’d gotten lucky, having an extra shirt in her backpack. The one she’d worn when she’d been shot was being repurposed as a bandage over her shoulder, sloppily secured by duct tape. It stung to apply, hardly helping the wound, but the repurposed shirt at least avoided getting blood on her clean(er) clothes.

Max’s spine stiffened. For a breath, she didn’t even know why-- and then she heard the jet turbines.

She scrambled to get her bandage on as well as she could, considering it was made of the scraps of a shirt that was barely hanging together in the first place. Standing quickly, she almost cracked her head on a pointed rock on the cave’s ceiling, but darted toward the entrance anyway.

Sure enough, a black spot on the horizon was rapidly growing. A military plane, judging by its size and speed.

“Oh, _fantastic,_ ” she muttered, dashing back into the cave at her fastest to retrieve her backpack. Admittedly, her fastest was much slower now that there was a bullet buried somewhere in her shoulder.

At the edge of the cliff, Max faltered. It was at least a hundred feet down, and she knew she’d only made it up the cliff with luck. The bullet hit her when she was about ninety feet up; running on adrenaline, that last ten feet was nothing. Normally, she’d leap for her life, be out of there and a mile away in the blink of an eye. She’d broken the sound barrier last time she pushed herself, and here she was, grounded. _Literally._ Muttering a few choice words to herself, she took a shaky breath in, running a hand through the flyaways falling free from her braid. “Okay,” she whispered, the hum of the airplane engines growing louder by the minute. “Let’s go.”

She turned to face the cliff, ignoring the drop, and started to scale it. She depended heavily on her right arm, because the slightest movement of her left one shot enough pain through her that she almost fell. Dust crumbled under her boot. The engine grew louder, an incessant humming in her ear.

The cave was a feeble fifteen feet above her head. She wasn’t going to make it any further on one arm, and there was no way she was getting caught by the government. Not again.

She steeled herself and lifted her left arm, arcs of pain shooting through her body. A cry broke loose from her lips as she engaged her muscles, feeling her foot slip off a rock and her body nearly plummet.

_Pain is just a message. Pain is just a message. Pain is just a message._

She gritted her teeth so hard she thought they’d break. But she kept moving, each inch a battle in itself, and that airplane racing closer with every second she spent aching--

Her foot touched the ground.

She almost laughed, but she didn’t have time, and she bolted instead. She felt her shoulder in agony, warming as blood seeped into the bandage.

The airplane had to be right above her as she raced through the burnt orange dust at the bottom of the valley between cliffs. Nothing would stop them if they caught her.

She saw cages.

She saw operating rooms.

And when the roaring in her ears became deafening, she dreamed about the tree line fifty yards away, even though her shoulder was throbbing so much that the world was spinning. The ground tilted. Something cold hit her in the back, and the world went dark.

“--she’s fine, just unconscious. Those new icer pellets aren’t easily defeated.”

The voice that floated to Max through her sleep seemed far away, watery, and her head ached. But her first thought was to stay still, bide her time, and listen. She wasn’t even sure she could move her limbs yet, anyway.

The same male voice that had spoken before went on. “I was thinking that maybe we should have diluted the serum, though. We don’t want to damage the weaponry.”

“You read her file, Fitz,” a new voice intoned. Female. Young-ish. Max immediately identified her as the most empathetic, the most likely to aid Max if she needed to manipulate her way out. “She’s nearly invincible. I think she’ll be fine when she wakes up. When will that be, anyway?”

“Another half hour or so,” the male replied. He was Scottish, or maybe Irish-- Max wasn’t entirely sure. “She’s just a kid, and we got her with an adult dose. Hang on--”

A fingertip graced her neck and Max snapped without even thinking, jerking her head upright and doing the only thing she could think to-- clapping her jaws shut on the hand that had touched her.

A scream. She tasted blood, but Max didn’t relinquish her hold until another gun was held to her throat and fired, and then she was plunged back into hard sleep.

The next time she came to, she was slumped on a cold metal table, her hands cuffed in front of her. Her head hurt double as much, and it seemed they had learned from her previous attack that distance would be key to maintaining all appendages. Her mouth still tasted faintly of blood, and she would’ve been more interested in spitting out the sensation if her head didn’t feel like it had been stuffed with lead.

“Morning, Maximum,” a man’s voice said, and it took Max a second to adjust to her surroundings and see his face. He was cute, she had to give him that; muscular, dark-haired and -eyed, clean-cut but with an air of grit to him. Sort of what Fang could’ve grown up to look like, except not winged and not quite as badass.

_Fang. The Flock._

She jerked up, her head pounding with the movement. The room spun, but Max managed to keep her eyes on the asshole on the other side of the table. “Where d’ya take ‘em?” She demanded, slurring her words like a drunk. Her inability to speak only fueled her frustration. Shaking her head roughly, she tried again, only achieving a slightly more coherent version of her demand. “Where’d you take ‘em?!”

The man on the other side of the table smirked. She ached to punch it off his face. “Don’t worry, Max, we didn’t want them. They’re fine, aside from looking for you.”

She only relaxed a little, brain slow to process. It was whatever drug they’d double-dosed her with, clogging her head, making her weak. “Wha’ d’you want?” She asked, giving up on trying to sound awake. She was pretty sure she could still put up a hell of a fight if she had to.

“We want to help you, Max,” he said.

He spoke so simply, so honestly. Every bit of his expression testified to his truth. He believed in his bones that keeping her against her will would help her.

Max laughed. He had no idea how many people had thought the same thing, and they were all dead. Not at Max’s hand-- not yet. “You can’t,” she spat, easily managing the two words alone. Her glare did the fighting for her.

He seemed taken aback by her hostility, her distrust. He sat back in his chair, readdressing the situation. _Teenage girl who’s been kidnapped and drugged_ didn’t seem right, apparently. Maybe _incredibly pissed off superhuman has a headache and a lot of questions and wants to scream some choice words at you as she punches your lights out_ was more accurate.

He settled on, “I’m Agent Grant Ward.”

“You know my name,” she countered, kicking the offer of companionship in its fake and unwanted face. “Let’s not be friends.”

He was quiet again, and she realized that his previous silence was because he was being ordered to do something. He was wearing a comms unit. “We know you’re Maximum Ride,” he admitted. “Subject of human experimentation--”

“ _Former_ subject,” she corrected him. Ward didn’t stumble.

“-- and leader of the unaffiliated rogue cluster known as the Flock. Do you consider yourself an enemy of Hydra?”

“Do you consider growing up in a medium-sized dog crate a good reason to hate someone?” She snarled, her voice’s usual acidity dulled by the pain in her head. She had more to say, but not the stamina to press out the migraine.

Ward’s eyes bored into her, searching for weakness and finding none. “You’ve been brought in by SHIELD.”

“Yay, more abbreviated names for stuff,” Max muttered, rolling her eyes but wincing as her head throbbed again. “I’m so excited for the deal you’re about to offer me.”

Ward paused again, listening. Max waited impatiently. _Hey, Flock, can you do the whole rescue song and dance before I fall asleep?_ She thought wryly.

The team watched with bated breath from the holocom, waiting for the money question. It had taken Ward entirely too long to crack a fifteen-year-old girl into being quiet enough to answer a question, and they were built up by the suspense. Every word spoken made Simmons tap her foot a little faster.

“We’d like you to join us,” he finished, lifting his head like a hero.

A hero for what? For supposedly saving her? As the feeling returned to Max’s body as the sedatives wore off, probably from the tranquilizers she’d been loaded with, she began to feel something else with the pain. Fury.

So she batted her eyelashes in her best Angel impression, leaned her chin on her hands, and yanked up on her handcuffs. The metal table weighed less than Max expected and the edge landed hard on Ward, right where the sun didn’t shine.

"Not today, Satan."


	2. storms named after girls

After an hour of pretending to be asleep, Max was presented with a second agent-- well, fourth, if she counted the first two. Her mouth still reeked of blood, and she hated to think that it wasn’t hers. With her head tucked neatly into her elbows, Max could try and get rid of the headache that she’d earned thanks to the triple dose of sleeper pellets.

It also worked pretty well at pissing them off, she’d imagine. 

The door swung open, giving Max a glimpse of a skinny, dark hallway outside and a larger room beyond. Judging by the layout and the altitude, she was at the back of an airplane. An interrogation room in an airplane. Had SHIELD been sneaking a look at her Christmas list?

“We know you’re awake,” the agent said, almost laughing at her pretense. “There were nanites in those sleepers that tell us if you’re injured. Did you know you have two broken ribs?”

Max lifted her head, shaking the hair out of her face. She leaned forward, chin in her hands, and smiled venomously. “Doping me up and taking my vitals without asking. You guys really know how to treat a girl, don’t you?”

The guy smirked, sliding a cup of water across the table to Max. Realizing she was parched beyond belief, probably thanks to getting knocked out, she seized the paper cup and gulped down the contents. She would’ve been embarrassed if she hadn’t immediately realized that there could be more… nano-whatevers in the cup, and she might’ve just drugged herself.

“Don’t worry, there’s nothing in there but water,” he assured her, seeing the suspicion in her eyes when she crushed the cup in her hand. “Those nanites also told us that you’re incredibly dehydrated-- enough to knock out the average adult.”

She chucked the crumpled-up cup at him, pegging him in the chest. He was balding a bit, with short brown hair and seemingly honest gray eyes. His face bore laugh lines, too many for the average governemtn crony. He was definitely the good cop.

Max tilted her head, gaze absolutely dripping the attitude only teenage girls can muster. “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

He sat down across from her, careful to keep out of her grasp. Smart move-- she’d been drumming up a dozen ways to repurpose her handcuffs around his neck. Unaware of how quickly Max’s mind was gearing into war mode, the good cop slid a file across the table.

Max only raised an eyebrow at him.

“That’s all about you,” he explained. “Hydra’s entire knowledge of Subject Eleven, informally known as Maximum Ride. So, Max--” he paused, faking familiarity-- “I can call you Max, right? Well, this is all the evidence that you exist. You’ve been deleted from Hydra’s database completely. All that’s left of you is this file.”

She didn’t quite understand why she needed to be drugged up and dragged onto a plane to read a file about herself, and her glower communicated that without her even speaking. She wasn’t sure she’d be able to without reusing a few of the words she’d flung at bad cop to make him get out of her face.

“We want you to destroy it,” he said, his words hitting as smoothly as a car driving over speed bumps in a mall parking lot during an earthquake.

“What?!” Max snapped before she could stop herself.

He smiled, and Max hated that his satisfaction was justified. She was hooked. Destroying everything they knew about her seemed appealing. No one would know her habits, her weaknesses, her strengths. She’d be free to attack at will.

That file was everything keeping her chained to Hydra. She wanted it to disappear. She wanted to  _ make _ it disappear. “You’ll get the file, Max,” he assured her, too kindly. He was too nice. She wanted to punch him in the face.

She ached to seize the file and destroy it right then, tear it to pieces with the raggedy nails and maybe even her teeth. But something held her back. She looks up at the agent, gaze steely. “What about the Flock?”

Although he looked confused at first, the good cop nodded, remembering who the Flock was. “Your family. Right. We’ll destroy their information too. Or you can. Or they can.” He shrugged. “I assume they’ll catch up with us eventually.”

Max snapped her eyes to his. “So I’m bait?” She hissed.

He shook his head reassuringly. “Of course not. You’re the leader. It’s up to you whether or not the Flock saves you, and if they do, we won’t hurt them any more than we’ve hurt you.”

Max knit her brows together and shoved her cuffed wrists forward, already turning purple with the force of flipping the table.

“That was all you,” the agent reminded her.

Max dropped her hands back on the table.“What do you want?” She demanded, knowing full well that everything came at a price. 

He narrowed his eyes, assessing the girl at the table. Her eyes were too old for her face, which was streaked with dry mud and what looked like blood clotted at her hairline. A scar was healing on her forehead, her dark eyes were perpetually searching for threats. It was hard to believe she was still a teenager, save for her constant sarcasm and backtalk.

“We want you to join us,” he said casually, standing from his chair and circling the table. Max couldn’t help but roll her eyes, but she paused when he continued. “But that’s up to you. All I want for the file,” he said, placing his thumb on the panel in the center of her handcuffs, “is for you not to punch me in the face.” They came undone around her wrists, and Max sat dumbly for a moment before she rubbed where they’d been bruising her.

They were letting her go?

_ Trust no one, _ her father’s voice echoed in her head.  _ Don’t let your guard down, not for a second. It only takes a second to get stabbed in the back. _

Max set her jaw, turning toward the agent as he walked toward the door. “Who are you?” She demanded, the question the only one in her mind that seemed coherent.

He looked back at her briefly, like he wasn’t even a little bit afraid of turning his back on her. He treated her like any other sixteen-year-old girl, and Max wasn’t sure if that was refreshing or annoying. Maybe both.

“I’m Agent Coulson, but it’s fine if you call me Phil.” He opened the door, and Max got a glimpse of other people outside this time. “I’m leaving the door unlocked, so whenever you feel like coming out and socializing, you can. You’ve got some fans already.”


	3. the greatest possible outcome

“You did  _ what?!”  _ Ward blustered, eyeing Coulson like he had finally lost it.

“I let her out,” Coulson shrugged. He loved pretending to be completely casual when he took huge risks. Even though letting Max loose wasn’t exactly a risk-- he knew that, at worst, she’d run away again, and they’d have to try a different Flock member. From what he’d seen of Max, she wasn’t the type to let anyone touch her family without a fight. He cocked an eyebrow at Ward. “Are you scared of her?”

“No,” Ward snapped too quickly. Skye hid her snicker, and he pretended not to notice. “I’m just the only sane one on this team, apparently.”

“She doesn’t kill people,” Coulson reminded them.

“Yet,” May tacked on.

Coulson wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t a little intimidated by the girl who was still lingering in the interrogation room. She’d managed to use handcuffs to her advantage. “I think she’s worth the risk,” he said plainly.

“I don’t,” Ward said bitterly.

An alert appeared at the corner of the table. Skye glanced down, eyes alight with excitement. “She’s out,” she said eagerly.

Ward shifted, subconsciously guarding his aching groin. Coulson side-eyed him, hiding an amused smirk. “You can go work with Fitzsimmons on the icers if you’re scared, Agent Ward.”

“I’m  _ not _ scared,” Ward quipped sharply. 

“Agent Grant Ward’s scared of a teenage girl,” Skye singsonged, earning a dangerous glare from Ward. She stuck her tongue out playfully. 

May rolled her eyes. “She’s not just a teenage girl, Skye. You read that file.”

Skye shrugged. “She seems pretty badass. I think we’ll get along.”

“There’s a big difference between badass and threatening,” Ward grumbled bitterly. Skye seemed all too happy to invite the kid over for a slumber party.

No one noticed the figure leaning against the door frame in the hallway leading to the interrogation room until Max cleared her throat. Ward’s right hand gravitated toward his icer, but Max merely raised her hands in mock surrender. “Whoa, there, trigger-happy,” she said darkly, her voice rumbling with warning. “I got a hall pass.” She jerked her chin toward Coulson.

Coulson shook his head lightly at Ward, offering Max a smile. So far, in the five seconds Max had been in the room, no one had died. “Guys, this is Max. She can really help us out.”

“I haven’t said yes yet,” Max said sternly, but something in her tone revealed a hint of wonder. She was, after all, a teenager who had found herself on a high-tech private plane being asked for help by the most powerful organization on the planet. She had good reason to be amazed. Instead of marveling at her surroundings, though, she leaned against the door frame and put a hand on her hip. “I feel like I don’t need to warn you that in less than a day you’ll be attacked by five superpowered mutants, all of whom have called me Maximom at some point.”

Skye turned away to hide her blooming smile.

“No,” Coulson confirmed. “We’re hoping they won’t need to. If you decide to join our fight, they’ll probably follow you. We’re not seeking enemies.” He offered a compassionate smile, but Max didn’t return it.

“So I get that you’re Phil,” she said, pointing with her free hand at Coulson. 

He nodded, shooting May a glance over his shoulder as if to say  _ I told you she wasn’t evil. _ May, unsurprisingly, wasn’t impressed.

“And you’re Dickhead,” she directed towards Ward. He scowled. 

“But what about the rest of you?” She asked. “If we’re gonna sit around the campfire singing songs, I’m going to need to know what names to put on your friendship bracelets.”

Silence enveloped the room as no one stepped up to go first. Max wasn’t necessarily imposing, definitely not at first glance, at least no more imposing than any other invincible teenage girl; five feet and nine inches of snarky mutant, wearing a dark gray shirt and ripped jeans with battered brown combat boots. But looking deeper, she had an air of experience that was unnerving combined with her youth. Not to mention the grime and filth covering her clothes.

“Now, don’t you all start talking at once,” Max quipped lightly, sidling closer a few steps. Her heartbeat echoed in her ears, and she hoped no one noticed that her right hand had begun to tug at the belt loop in the back of her jeans.

“I’m Skye,” said the youngest agent, wearing clothes typical of a college student and not a government employee. She smiled genuinely, not with purposeful friendliness like Phil or self-centric heroism like Dickhead.

Max, identifying her as the least likely to try and pull a gun on her, took a liking to Skye.

“Agent May,” said a severe-looking woman near Phil. She wore all black, a weathered glower, and crossed arms; she, wisely, didn’t trust Max. Seeing as Max had looked in a mirror and seen herself morph into an Eraser once, Max didn’t blame May for the distrust. Still, she didn’t miss the obvious comparison to another cross-looking, black-clad protector type she’d been missing for days.

Max opened her mouth to answer May, but a thundering of shoes on metal stairs interrupted her the moment she opened her mouth. Max looked past the glass enclosure that it appeared most of the agents had come from.

Two people stumbled into the main living area of the plane, neither of which seemed combat-ready to Max. A boy and girl-- she thought lightly, seeing at they were both at least twenty-- who looked like they’d never fired a gun in their lives. The first was a woman with a small frame and brown hair loosely clad in a ponytail, and the second was a barely larger boy with haphazard cinnamon curls and big eyes. “That’s her!” The girl chirped, just as the boy asked, “You let her out?!”

With every passing second, Max became less and less sure that she had walked into a cold, hard governmental plane and into an episode of Full House. These two couldn’t be too much older than she was, and it was staggeringly clear neither of them had ever attempted to fight a day in their lives. But, she reminded herself, they had to be smart. This was probably a trap to get her to let her guard down. Regardless, Max raised a hand and waved shortly, slipping it in the back pocket of her jeans when they waved back dumbly. 

Phil introduced them once he realized they were both becoming a bit dumbstruck at the sight of the girl. He feared Simmons was about to squeal if she opened her mouth. “Max, that’s Fitzsimmons.”

She wrinkled her nose, thinking that approximately zero percent of that sentence made sense. “ _ They’re _ Fitz-what?”

“I’m Fitz,” said the boy. He nudged the girl lightly. “She’s Simmons. Can we see your wings?”

Max cocked an eyebrow, but her reply was cut short by the girl-- Simmons-- elbowing Fitz in the ribs. “You can’t just ask to see her wings, you idiot!” But as she turned back to Max, it was plain to see that she was desperate for a look.

Max darted her gaze sideways at Skye, who had a similar expression of curiosity. Dickhead looked ready to pull his icer and take her out all over again, but Max was sure at some point she’d develop a tolerance anyway. She smirked at Simmons. “It’s okay. They’re pretty cool.”

Slowly-- no,  _ dramatically _ , because at this point the tension in the room was palpable and Max was always a fan of making an impact-- she unfurled her wings, bits of dust and dirt crumbling off her windbreaker as it was ruffled. Through the haphazard slices down the back of her clothes, a pair of brown speckled wings emerged, exuding power. Her muscles rippled just slightly underneath the feathers, and she adjusted her shirt as the tips of her outer feathers caught the hem.

Max watched as every face in the room went a little slack-- even May’s-- at the sight of them, and she felt more than a little swell of pride. She never cared for beauty, but even she knew that her wings were gorgeous. They were only half-extended, still, because she wanted to save their full glory until she took flight out of the back bay of the airplane-- which was her current plan of escape.

“Goddamn,” Skye murmured, breaking the silence. She gave Max a brilliant smile. “You’re like a mini-angel or something.”

_ Angel _ . That was a whole other issue. Max rolled her eyes, knowing Skye would be confused about why, and tucked her wings back inside her jacket with a little readjustment. She turned to Phil, hands on her hips. Even he was a bit dumbstruck, even though she’d had him pegged as a bit of a hardass. Good-- she didn’t want them thinking she was nothing but a pretty face. Dragging the back of her hand across her dirt-streaked face, she asked, “So, I’ve been knocked out a handful of times today, and you know what that does to a girl.”

He lowered a brow. “... Pisses her off?” He guessed.

Max shrugged. “I mean, you’re not wrong, but usually it just makes me have to pee. You guys have a bathroom on your fancy private jet, right?” She asked crudely.

“I’ll take her!” Skye volunteered eagerly, jumping out of her seat. At the glare she received from Dickhead, she crossed her arms. “Come on, what do you think I’m gonna do? Hack her?”

She was clearly being sarcastic, but Fitzsimmons looked half-convinced it was an option.

Phil nodded, and Skye grinned again, hurrying towards Max, who shrank away the slightest bit. Skye, noticing, slowed, and didn’t try to touch her. “This way,” she said, tilting her head toward the bathroom. 

Max slipped her hands into her back pockets, sidling off after Skye. She felt the eyes of the room on her back as they exited. 

May shot Coulson her coldest side-eye as Ward muttered, “This should be fun.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey dudes, i'm back with some more crossover fun! trying to make a comeback on ao3, so expect more frequent updates. see y'all next time, and feel free to comment with your thoughts!


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